|
In a couple of weeks, I'll be on my way to Las
Vegas for the annual SEMA Show. Founded as the Speed Equipment Manufacturers
Association, though now officially registered as the Specialty Equipment
Market Association, SEMA remains a trade association for those who produce
the automotive parts and accessories that the original manufacturers either
couldn't or wouldn't produce - from hot-rod engine parts to exotically
aerodynamic body kits, thousand watt audio systems and stuff to plug into
a trailer hitch that has absolutely nothing to do with towing a trailer.
I'm not a fan of
Las Vegas, but I thoroughly enjoy the SEMA Show, in part because of all
the new stuff for cars, but primarily because of the people who create
that stuff and the stories they tell about that creation.
Usually, it goes
something like this: I had this problem - or my dad or wife or friend
had this problem - and I started tinkering and I made this thing that
solved the problem and then someone saw it and asked where I got it and
I said I made it and they asked if I could make them one and, well, now
it's to the point that it's become a full-time business.
Basically, it's the
all-American success story, told over and over again and produced in metal
or composite plastics or rubber or some combination of those and other
materials.
On occasion, I'll
get to hear some old-timer tell his story, and the story of the pioneering
days of speed equipment. And now, Paul D. Smith has gone out and gathered
a bunch of those stories and shares them in his extensively researched
and wonderfully written book, Merchants of Speed: The Men Who Built America's
Performance Industry.
Edelbrock, Crane,
Hilborn, Iskenderian, Offenhauser, Weiland and many others - they're in
there. Their stories, and their photos, vintage photos that transport
you back to "the day," the day when they were solving problems
- including being wheelchair bound -- and creating parts, in the case
of this book parts developed primarily to make cars go faster - on the
street, on the dry lakes, on the drag strip and around the racetrack.
While Edelbrock,
Hilborn and Offenhauser have become, well, not household names but certainly
are recognized in every garage across the land, there are other people
in this book who might not be quite so well known, but their stories are
every bit as compelling.
Merchants
is Paul D. Smith's first book. I hope he's already working on another.
|